Not Just Fuel: Why Food Is Meant to Be Felt

After years of doing this work, you'd think I'd have it all figured out.

And mostly, I do. I know how my body responds to stress. I know what happens when I skip meals or eat standing up between patients. I've taught this material so many times I could do it in my sleep.

But every now and then, I'll catch myself finishing a meal and realizing I don't remember tasting any of it. Phone in one hand, fork in the other, already mentally onto the next thing before I've finished what's in front of me.

It doesn't happen that often anymore. But when it does, I don't beat myself up about it. I just notice it. And I remember: this is exactly why I teach what I teach.

Because I know how it is. The demands don't stop. Between patients, family, events, travel, and building something new while maintaining everything that already exists, there's always something pulling at your attention. Always another thing that feels urgent. And food becomes the thing you squeeze in between everything else, if you manage to remember it at all.

Progress, not perfection. That's always been the point.

So if you're reading this and thinking you should have figured out food by now, that you should be past the late-night snacking or the complicated feelings about carbs or the way you sometimes eat over the sink like you're hiding from someone, I want you to hear something:

The goal was never to be perfect. The goal is to keep coming back to yourself.

The Lie We Keep Repeating

"Food is fuel."

It's something we've been taught since we were kids. Just something we've always accepted. When we don't eat, we have no energy to do things. It just makes sense.

And when you look at it from a more scientific view, the macros actually do matter. Our bodies genuinely run on what we put into them.

But here's what that phrase leaves out:

Your body also runs on meaning. Memory. The thousand micro-moments that shaped how you learned to feed yourself. The meals that meant someone loved you, and the ones that meant you were alone.

You're not a machine with a gas tank. You're a nervous system with a history.

And that history shows up at the table whether you invite it or not.

What's Actually Happening When You Eat

I want to share something that changed how I think about all of this, something I wish I'd understood much earlier in my career.

Your vagus nerve (that long nerve running from your gut to your brain) does a lot more than people realize. It regulates digestion, yes. But it also regulates emotional processing, inflammation, and your safety signals.

What I find interesting, though, is that when your nervous system feels safe, your vagus nerve supports something called vagal tone. Good vagal tone means better digestion, calmer emotions, and a body that can actually extract nourishment from what you're eating.

But when you're stressed? Rushed? Eating while answering emails, driving, or even when you're carrying shame about the food on your plate?

Your vagus nerve constricts. Digestion slows. Inflammation rises. Your body moves into protection mode.

This is why you can eat the perfect meal and still feel unsatisfied. It's not that the food was wrong, but that the state was wrong.

Cortisol blocks digestion. Oxytocin supports it.

If you're eating alone, multitasking, or sitting with shame about what you're putting in your mouth... you're bathed in cortisol. Your body's trying to protect you from a threat, not receive nourishment.

And that's not a character flaw. That's just biology doing what biology does.

Three Meals That Shaped How I See This

There are three meals that taught me something I now see play out in my practice constantly.

The first: being sick as a kid and my mom making me soup. It wasn't anything fancy and likely came from a can, honestly. But she brought it to me in bed and sat with me while I ate instead of rushing off to do something else. It wasn't about the soup, but about her being there.

The second: eating cold leftovers in the breakroom during a night shift years ago. I had maybe ten minutes before the next patient. It wasn't what I'd consider a "real meal," just whatever I had grabbed from home, eating it fast while standing because I felt like if I'd sat down I'd likely pass out. It wasn't nourishing, it was just getting through the night.

The third: a meal after losing someone I loved. Family and friends sat around a table. No one was actually hungry, but everyone was eating anyway. Food as ritual. Food as connection. Food as what we do together when words aren't enough.

None of these were about macros. They were about context.

And what I've come to understand after years of sitting with women in my practice: your body learned how to eat from every meal that came before this one. The rushed ones. The lonely ones. The ones eaten in secret or in shame. The ones where connection happened. The ones where it was missing.

Your nervous system carries that history into every meal you eat now.

Why You're Still Hungry

If you finish eating and still feel hungry (or unsatisfied), consider this:

Maybe it wasn't the food. Maybe it was the circumstances.

Were you present? Or were you scrolling, working, driving, or already thinking about the next thing?

Was there safety? Or were you eating in stress, in a rush, in secrecy, or in judgment?

Were you nourished? I don't mean nutritionally. I mean the whole of you. The part that needs connection. Ritual. Presence.

Your body isn't broken when you eat past fullness. It's trying to meet a need that the meal didn't satisfy.

Sometimes what feels like physical hunger is actually nervous system hunger. Your body looking for something that macros can't provide.

The Signs Your Body Is Asking for Safety, Not Restriction

I've been in practice long enough to recognize a pattern. Women come in convinced they need more discipline around food. Stricter rules, better willpower, more control.

But when I actually sit with them, the story underneath is almost always the same:

The binge-restrict cycles that feel impossible to break. The emotional eating that happens when everything else is "fine." The food rigidity or fear that makes eating feel like a minefield. The loss of hunger and fullness cues altogether.

These aren't signs of weakness. They're signs that somewhere along the way, food stopped feeling safe. The relationship got disrupted. And the body started protecting itself the only way it knew how.

You can't willpower your way out of a nervous system response. You have to address what the nervous system is actually responding to.

What Actually Helps

I'm not going to give you another meal plan. But here's what I've seen work, over and over, with the women I work with:

Create safety before you eat.

This sounds almost too simple, but it matters. Before you start a meal, pause. Take a breath. Put the phone somewhere you can't see it. Notice where you are.

You're not earning the right to eat. You're giving your body a signal: it's okay to receive this.

Get curious instead of controlling.

When you reach for food outside of hunger, don't immediately judge yourself. Get curious. What's happening right now? What am I actually feeling? What does this part of me need?

Sometimes the answer is food. Sometimes it's rest. Sometimes it's a connection you don't know how to ask for.

Let pleasure back in.

This is the one that gets left out of most nutrition advice.

Pleasure isn't an indulgence. It's a regulation tool. Oxytocin (the same hormone that supports bonding and trust) gets released when you experience genuine enjoyment.

When you strip all the pleasure out of eating, you strip out part of what makes it nourishing.

Eat like someone you're taking care of.

I think about this often. How we'd never shove food at a child while they're distracted or upset. How we'd never make them eat standing up or in secret.

We'd sit with them, create a moment, and make it matter.

Why is it so hard to offer ourselves the same thing?

The Deeper Question

What if your emotional eating isn't a failure of willpower?

What if it's your nervous system trying to meet a need that your actual life isn't meeting?

What if the problem isn't that you ate the cookies, but that you ate them alone, carrying shame that made satisfaction impossible anyway?

Food is relationship. And relationships require safety, attention, and care.

Not control, or a transaction, and not as a numbers game.

Food was never meant to be just fuel.

It's sensory. Emotional. Relational. Cultural. It's part of how your body experiences safety, pleasure, and connection.

When you stop trying to control it and start listening to it, the whole relationship shifts. From war to partnership. From problem to practice.

I still catch myself eating without presence sometimes. After all these years, I still do. But I've learned that's not failure. That's just being human.

The practice isn't perfection. It's noticing. And then, gently, coming back.

Disclaimer & A Note from a Caring Practitioner:

My goal is to translate complex wellness concepts into relatable ideas to support your journey. The explanations I provide are simplified models intended for general education and motivation, based on both clinical patterns and established wellness principles. They are not complete medical explanations, diagnoses, or personal advice.

Every person's body is unique. Your individual health needs, experiences, and underlying conditions must be evaluated by your own healthcare provider. This information is educational only and is never a substitute for professional medical consultation, diagnosis, or treatment. Always partner with your personal healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.